getting lost in museums

ok, now that i have access to wifi, power, a cup of tea and biscuits all in the same location (my definition of a pretty damned good working environment) am starting to write up my notes. and here's a bonus game for you, this time related to the title of this post. which film character is alleged to have got lost in his own museum? name of film, character and actor on the back of a comment please!

right, back to this: this is the last presentation i went to today, and was called "mobile learning in the museum landscape: supporting higher education students". it was a good talk, if a little short (the session convener in this room was a bit haphazard with his timings, letting some people overrun, then penalising the presenters who followed. not fair at all.). you can find out more about the project here and also get hold of the evaluation reports here - so i won't waste too much time on the details. but basically, it was about giving museum visitors (in this case HE design students) devices that let them follow a trail through the V&A, offering them more information about particular artefacts or issues, allowing them to upload text-, audio- or photo-based comments themselves, and then access their trails online later.

there were a few elements that i thought were interesting/worth following up, including:

• tensions between "free-choice learning" (ie, the quintissential museum experience of getting lost and finding your own pathway) and "fixed trails" (eg, "think back to the previous exhibit and reflect on x" - which you wouldn't be able to do with more free-range approaches to discovery) - the presenters were quite certain that there was a place for both. and for what it's worth, so am i :)
• the additional bits of information accessed via a mobile device allowed students to access material in-location (ie, at a specific point along the trail) that the museum wouldn't be able to display on-location (not enough room for all those labels!).
• recordings of expert voices (audio or text) enabled students to see the links between scholarship and practice - eg, between the historical design they were studying (artefact) and current practice (eg, testimony from a well-known practitioner in the area of ceramic design).
• the museum resources and iGuides acting as a 'complementary layer' of information, not in competition with HE resources. this presentation focussed on the study of design, but i'd like to think it's applicable across a range of subject areas.

any thoughts/comments/obvious applications within the work we're doing?